Other Titles • The King and I • Rodgers and Hammerstein's The King and I (1956) • Der König und Ich (1956) • Der König von Siam (1956)
Synopses for The King and I (1956)
1.
Rogers and Hammerstein's Broadway musical, adapted from Margaret Landon's fact-based novel and the 1946 film ANNA AND THE KING OF SIAM, makes a spectacularly successful move to the silver screen in the Yul Brynner tour de force THE KING AND I. Brynner, reprising the role he'd polished to perfection on stage, plays the blustering, headstrong Siamese potentate who meets his match in the form of Anna Leonowens (Deborah Kerr), the prim and proper English widow he's hired to oversee the rearing of his huge, unruly flock of children.
Director Walter Lang (TIN PAN ALLEY) presents THE KING AND I, one of the most popular musicals in cinema history, as a dizzyingly bountiful Technicolor feast. Kerr (aided during songs by the overdubbed voice of Marni Nixon) contributes a dynamic performance that is every bit the equal of Brynner's transcendent, career-defining turn, for which he won an Academy Award. The delightful score, which also garnered an Oscar, includes three perennial favorite show tunes: "I Whistle a Happy Tune," "Getting to Know You," and "Shall We Dance?"
2.
This visual and musical masterpiece features Yul Brynner's Academy Award winning performance, an unforgettable Rodgers and Hammerstein score and brilliant choreography by Jerome Robbins. It tells the true story of an English woman, Anna Leonowens (Kerr), who comes to Siam as schoolteacher to the royal court in the 1860s. Though she soon finds herself at odds with the stubborn monarch (Brynner), over time, Anna and the King stop trying to change each other and begin to understand one another.
Winner of six Academy Awards, The King And I contains some of the most lavish sets in Hollywood and some of the world's best-loved songs, including "Getting To Know You," "I Whistle A Happy Tune," "Hello, Young Lovers" and "Shall We Dance?"
3.
In 1955 this lavish production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Broadway hit The King and I, starring Yul Brynner as the King of Siam and Deborah Kerr as the governess sent to look after his children, was the most expensive film ever mounted by 20th Century Fox. The 40 sets in ripe decors by Walter M Scott and Paul S Fox included a ballroom of black marble with jade and silk tapestries and a banqueting scene with a table that gives the impression of stretching to infinity. The costumes by Irene Sharaff, notably the hoop ballroom gown for Deborah Kerr and those for the ballet "The Small House of Uncle Thomas", dazzle the eye in their delineation of Western manners and Oriental splendour. Brynner remains impressive as the King but his pidgin dialogue, inherited from Hammerstein's book, with the dropping of the definite article takes some adjustment. Alfred Newman put his unique stamp on the music: the Overture offers an example of his luminous divided string sound, the climactic ballroom scene a full bodied orchestral reprise of "Shall We Dance?" as the camera pulls away to a high angle producing an exultant visual finish to this celebrated polka.
On the DVD: To view The King and I in its original format (thanks to this DVD release) is a revelation. Over the years the production values of the film have been compromised through inadequate presentation on television and video. Now the eye can appreciate once more the novelty of the wide-screen process CinemaScope 55 which offers in-depth vision, breathtaking employment of Eastman colour and an enhanced sound system that ensures a well-upholstered backdrop for the sumptuous musical arrangements under conductor Alfred Newman. DVD supplements here include the original theatrical trailer, a Movietone news of the Oscar ceremony of 56-57 and three songs lifted from the movie itself. Marni Nixon overdubbed Deborah Kerr's vocals on screen--those moments where one voice takes over from another are more clearly delineated on the DVD with the result that there is some discrepancy between Kerr's spirited playing and Nixon's over careful (rather) twee enunciation of the lyrics. --Adrian Edwards
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